Legislating for Good Behaviour

Both Labour and the Conservatives seem to be falling over themselves in trying to stop excessive drinking. No one who has strolled down the local high street in any British city on a Saturday night will have failed to notice the often high levels of intoxication of local inhabitants. This culture of ‘binge drinking’ might be the height of incivility in Britain and it is, one could argue, the mark of a culture of excess and hedonism. Government plans to act on this issue might contain good intentions but also flaws.

Although not perfectly analogous, the bid of the current government to promote good behaviour is reminiscent of the attempt of Louis IX, the 13th-century French monarch, to do the same. Louis IX, a devout and morally sound man, tried to enforce on his people, through his authority and legislation, the teachings of the Scriptures and of the Church. Among other things, he prohibited swearing, games played for money, and taverns open to local people. In contrast, Aquinas argued it does not belong to human law to quell every possible vice. First, human law does have a role in moral education but ‘too much too soon’ might be worse and focus, consequently, should be placed on the most serious harms (e.g., murder). Second, prohibiting, say, excessive drinking can actually encourage even more excessive drinking – the law becomes a means of provocation to some. On a more fundamental level, this illustrates Aquinas’s point that human law is drawn from natural reason and all rational beings are able to derive the common principles of natural law. These will direct us towards the common good but the knowledge of how to achieve the common good is not exclusive to a ruler.

More than anything else, this episode seems to be yet another desperate attempt of the Brown premiership to control ‘nitty-gritty’ details of people’s lives. Unruly behaviour, such as binge drinking, cannot be legislated away but can only be fought by promoting virtues, tradition, and, finally, human reason.

(It will come as no surprise to many readers that some material in this blog entry has been inspired by the work of Alasdair McIntyre.)

Neither Brown nor Cameron are trying to control the ‘nitty-gritty’ of people’s private lives. It has long been against the law in the UK to be drunk in public, including in a public house. These laws were on the statute book look before the phrase “Nanny State” entered our vocabulary. Why? It isn’t hard to figure out. As you say, Aquinas does not support the suppression of all Vice through human law, but only the most serious which are detrimental to the common good. In ST 2a2ae, 150, 2, Aquinas quotes Ambrose on Drunkeness: “For the things we avoid when sober, we unknowingly commit through drunkenness.” In other words, many crimes are committed during a state of drunkeness which would not otherwise happen, particularly violent assaults, murders, rapes, etc. It only suffices to review the statistical information on violent crimes committed by people who are drunk to see that the authorities charged with the care of the common welfare are well within the scope of that authority to prohibit public intoxication.

Aaron – thank you for bringing up a very good point. However, taking your argument to its logical conclusion (and extreme) we would, surely, be mandated to completely ban all forms of alcohol consumption for then there would be no crimes committed as a result of excessive drinking.

The point is that it is not alcohol itself which is the problem but, rather, the actions people take when intoxicated. Therefore, it is those acts that must prosecuted – not the alcohol.

In this case, we should trust that people can use, by applying human reason, alcohol responsibly. Further government intervention in the market for alcoholic beverages, as proposed by the government, is highly unlikely to produce such a result. In fact, consumption of alcohol will probably not change very much given that the price elasticity of alcohol is very low. That is, an increase in price has a proportionately smaller impact on the quantity demanded by consumers.